Los Angeles; Apr. 5 – Los Angeles authorities are threatening a community farm with imminent destruction in a local struggle between social and environmental values and individual property rights.

Last month, a representative from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department placed an eviction notice on the gate of the approximately 14-acre South Central Farm in Los Angeles, presumed to be the largest urban community garden in the United States. While the last thread of their legal case lingers in court, keeping eviction at bay, farmer-organizers and their supporters are engaged in round-the-clock political organizing to save the farm's 300-plus survival gardens from replacement by a private warehouse.

Seated at a picnic table in the middle of the farm last December, Albert Tlatoa mused, "If you were to be brought here blindfolded, you would guess that you were miles and miles away from a city. But we're surrounded by factories."